On Having a Strong-Willed Child

      So, last week I wrote about one of our battles in this post.  Last Friday, before we left for marathon fun, I called my brother-in-law's mother.  Apparently, my brother-in-law was a strong-willed kiddo, or, as we have re-dubbed them in my Bible Study Group to sound more positive - a "motivated" kid.  Sufficed to say, I have one highly motivated daughter in Lily.  Bette (aforementioned BIL's mom) and I have spoken in the past, because she now teaches classes on strong willed children and has a real heart to minister to moms who are trying to navigate through this.  Which is such a blessing.
      Talking with her was so encouraging.  She reminded me of several things.  1) Lily is just doing her job in life trying to figure out her boundaries and if she can believe what we say.  2) My job description while raising her during this time is to Be Consistent.  3) Motivated kids often make great leaders and really motivated adults, and there are many positive traits that come along with the negative ones.  I was also reminded that there is no way to go around, we can only go through.  I think I catch myself thinking that I must be missing the magic bullet that will make things easier, which is absurd, wishful thinking.  The only way through is to do the hard, sometimes maddening, sometimes mind-numbing work of just plowing through it, and, ultimately, to turn my children over to the Lord daily, seeing as they are his anyway.
      So, we are learning at this house, always learning.  And, I am asking the Lord to help me to be diligent in the tasks before me, large and small.  I am realizing that my personality can be a bit extreme in areas, and God knew that giving me a child that I could not handle without his help would be a perfect shaping agent in my life.  If my child obeyed without hours of fighting, what would be the fun in that?  More importantly, I would be likely to credit myself for great parenting and not depend on the Lord for his wisdom and guidance, which ultimately would not serve our family well.
      Here is my truly sweet girl - she actually put the glasses on and asked me to take her picture.  She has taken to wearing these Mr. Potato Head glasses around the house, especially while pushing her stroller.  Awesomeness.





And, here is my other darling.  Bette reminded me that my job description will likely be very different with Bella.  I am curious to see what it will look like and how she will continue to develop into her own little person.  She is starting to say words - my favorites this week are "Kitty," when she shrieks and points as one of our cats walks by and "Peek-a-boo," while she covers her eyes with those precious pudgy hands of hers.  Though she is not yet walking (and carrying around all 27 pounds of her is hard work), she is climbing onto everything.  Exhibit A.  Watch out for knives, Bella.




And, if you could hand me that dish, that would be great.  Also, thanks for your kind comments about that earlier post.  From what I am hearing, having a motivated child is pretty common, and though I am not happy that other moms are facing some of the things I face, I am glad to have community to share it with.  Thanks!

Christmas Decor: Round Two

      The inside of our home is completely decorated for Christmas now, which definitely makes us all feel festive.  Lily keeps saying, "Christmas came to our house!"  Here is the big tree in our living room.  I used bouquets of fake flowers that I cut apart for the poinsettias, dark blue flowers and silver berries.  It is a lot of bang for your Christmas buck, and you can just stick them in the tree - they stay put, unless your 14 month old tries to rip them out.  But I guess none of you have that problem at your house.  (I have to be fair to her, she is not messing with them now they have been up a few days and the novelty has worn off.)




Here is the butterfly tree in Bella's room.  It sort of looks like Easter threw up on it, but going over the top is so much fun!



Here is the tree in Lily's room.  I used tissue paper to make flowers and stuck little drink umbrellas in for extra color.



I hung ornaments from the chandelier in our dining room and then basically set ornaments around on every free surface.




Yesterday, John said he wanted to make us an advent wreath, though it is a little late to use for every Sunday this year.  I was all for this plan (and thrilled that I married a guy who likes to "craft" a little), and while he worked on it in his shop, I spray painted stuff silver.



These random trees that John brought home from CFA and this sleigh that I picked up on this thrifting trip needed some change-ups to fit in here.  Silver spray paint to the rescue!  They went from this -



to this -



Now, we just have to finish decorating the outside of our house.  This crazy rain and the crazy run on Saturday have put a kink in our plans to get stuff up out there.  It will happen eventually, hopefully before the parties this weekend.  We girls have enjoyed a rainy day without leaving the house once, which rarely happens around here.  To see the rest of the decor, click here.  Merry Christmas decorating!

Memphis Marathon: Done!

      This weekend has been quite momentous already.  Last night we traveled to Memphis in preparation for John's marathon.  And he did it!  Under his goal time!  I am so proud of him and so thankful that he was able to do this.  We went straight to Spaghetti Warehouse last night so John could eat pasta.  Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with this idea - our wait was really long, so long that they gave us our food for free.  Here is part of our wait.

This morning after dropping John off, we headed back to the hotel to change.  We went back to wait for John around the half-way point, which was on Beale Street.  The anticipation . . .




And, then, there he was!



We got three salty from sweat kisses as he ran past!  The girls were so excited to see him.

We tried to catch him at mile 14, but we just missed him.  I had done my research on how to kill time while John was running, and we girls headed to the Peabody to see the march of the ducks at 11.  I was not the only one with this idea, so it was crazy, but fun.  Bella slept through our entire visit to the Peabody.

After taking in all of the Christmas fun at the Peabody, we headed over to AutoZone Park (a baseball park), where the race was finishing.  We got there a little early, so I had a lot of baby wrangling to do, which was made more difficult by the fact that neither girl could sit in the chairs without me holding the chairs so they wouldn't fold up with the girls inside of them.  But, before long, we spotted him, running around the bend.




He did great!  I really could not be more proud of him.  It has been hard-fought training, involving injury, physical therapy, stretching, a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of time.  We are both glad he is finished, and he has said that he won't be doing a marathon during this stage of life again.  It is a big commitment.  But, it is wonderful to set a goal and to reach it.  He finished in 3 hours, 58 minutes and 11 seconds.  Amazing!
      Here he is with the girls, post-race.

Speaking of the girls, they really had their ups and downs, as everyone does.  One of the major downs was that Bella was wide awake from about 2:15 to 4:45 a.m.  This never happens, and I was very nervous about getting John the amount of sleep that he needed, so that meant that I was up with her, trying to get her back to sleep.  She wasn't crying, she was just wide awake and would start to whimper when I laid her back down.  It was my own marathon of 2.5 hours that I did not realize Bella had in her.
      But, I am so glad we got to accompany John and be there for this achievement.  I even thought that at 4:30 a.m. when Bella was still not seeming tired.  It was worth it.



Tonight, we are headed for dinner at John's running sensei's house - they are so kindly hosting us!

Interrupting the Scheduled Programming

      Today I had planned to blog about the rest of the Christmas decorations, which are mostly complete.  However, Lily has had other plans for my day.  What is it about being two years old that makes life so incredibly challenging?  I think that is probably one of the great questions in life.  Lily is currently wailing from a corner in our house.  (Side note: all of her usual corners are literally tear-stained.)  She has been there for the better part of two and a half hours so far.  Her room looks like this right now, and, per usual ritual, I have asked her to pick it up.
      It is not happening.  I feel like I have tried everything I can do without hurting her.  And, she is playing extreme mind games with me.  And, if I am really honest, I feel like hurting her.  Usually I feel up to the challenge, but today, I feel like she is winning.  I even called John out of desperation, because I needed just to bounce words off of someone who would not scream "no" at me.
      I don't want to sound whiny, which may be unavoidable.  Thankfully, Bella has been really sweet today, especially in light of the fact that she face planted last night on the wood floors and had a really bloody mouth.  It seems all better now, but that is never fun.  Speaking of blood, in the midst of Lily screaming from the corner this afternoon, she has also managed to pull off about half of her large toe nail, resulting in a lot of blood.  On the bright side, there were no vampires around, and I was able to get a bandaid to patch her up, but still - really?  Was that necessary?
      I think people sometimes get the wrong impression from this here little blog that I have things together.  We are interrupting the regularly scheduled programming to shout from the roof tops that that is not the case.  I do not know what to do with my child, which makes me feel like a failure.  And, I was a little irritated with God when he did not answer my prayer immediately and make her stop screaming.  Though, I know he doesn't work like that.
      I am seeing, slowly but surely, that God is more interested in the long-haul.  He is interested in my heart, just as well as hers.  Why is working on our hearts so hard?  It seems that is just the way of things. So, this post is uglier than I was planning on, but it is real.  It is where we really are.  And - John just got home - what a great man to the rescue!  Though we may have a long night ahead of us, I am glad to be facing it with him.